


this is the wolf

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2015 [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Community: wishlist_fic, Creeper Peter, Dark, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Growing Up, Introspection, Not Beta Read, Post-Season/Series 03, Prompt Fic, Rule 63, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:42:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5424383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Peter watches Stiles, at sixteen, five, seven, always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the wolf

**Author's Note:**

> For _beccatdemon13_ who asked for Rule 63!Stiles. I tried to write more in the _Like the Greeks_ verse, but it came out dumb and flat, so I tried something else and I hope this is what you wanted.

+

This is Stiles Stilinski at sixteen years old:

Tall, skinny, pale, mole-dotted and tenderly bruised on the inside. Big-mouthed and pixie-nosed, with her hair buzzed short and her mother nine years dead. 

Self-conscious, self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-sacrificing. 

Loyal. 

Smart. 

Careless.

Alcohol-orphaned, job-orphaned, grief-orphaned.

Human. 

Sickly. Off-beat. Off-kilter. Sarcastic. Brave. 

Clever.

Clever enough to be standing in a hospital hallway, cell phone in hand, golden eyes wide with realization as Peter steps from the shadows to look at her, face to face, eye to eye, for the first time.

Her heart jack-rabbits in her chest, her puls prey-beats against the delicate skin of her throat and oh, he can just see the fine lines his claws would leave there, like copper wire strung around her neck.

He can hear his nephew’s voice through the phone, tinny and terrified. Derek in a nutshell, Peter thinks, dismisses him to smile at the girl with all his teeth. 

She twitches, stance widening, to run, to fight, to take on the world. 

“You must be Stiles,” he drawls, like it’s a surprise. 

Impossibly, her heart beats faster still at the mention of her name and Peter, Peter, Peter wants to _eat_ her. 

+

A snapshot of the girl at five:

Gap-toothed and bug-eyed, orbiting Claudia in the supermarket, while she’s chatting with Peter, three years behind her in school, old friend from drama club. 

Stiles is not yet Stiles, bangs into her mother’s knees every other minute, babbling at light speeds, energy boundless, childish inquiries impossibly clever. 

“Mommy!” she calls, hands full of mashed fruit Claudia will inevitably have to pay for. “Why’re apples hard and ‘matoes aren’t?”

Claudia rolls her eyes, the dementia already eating her brain. She doesn’t know it yet. “Because they’re different, baby.”

“But you an’ me’re different, too, and you’re not hard and I’m not squishy.” She stops herself, frowns and turns scientific eyes on Peter before carelessly dropping the tomato and poking him in the thigh. “He’s hard!” she declares, satisfied.

Peter laughs and laughs and laughs.

+

The thing about Stiles at sixteen, the thing about this self-raised thing, is that she doesn’t remind Peter of Claudia for even a second. 

Not only because most of the memory of her mother has been burnt away by six years of endless fire, but because the two could not be less similar. Claudia was soft – squishy – and warm, kind and maternal and funny. 

Stiles, not yet grown into her limbs, is none of that, not soft, not kind, not harmlessly funny. She bites, every angle of her, every word and action, a savage thing left to run wild after Claudia’s death. 

Even with two werewolves fighting above her, his nurse lying bloody on the floor, Stiles is never afraid. 

Sour with stress and anticipation, rancid with hormones, adrenaline and sweat, but never, never afraid. 

Peter tries to explain to his dumb nephew, to describe the agony of dying a slow, fiery death and never being dead, and in the corner, the girl cowers, crouched and wire-taut, and all she stinks of is rage. 

+

Stiles at twelve goes like this:

“Uhm,… hi. I shouldn’t really be in here, but… I… Scott’s mom works here and we visit her sometimes. She’s cool. I stay over at his house a lot after school, you know. And I… she told me your name the other day and I thought it sounded familiar so I looked through my mom’s things and you… you were friends, weren’t you? I remember you. You used to come over sometimes, before she died. You always laughed when I did something embarrassing. Anyway, Mama McCall said you’re all alone here, so I thought I’d just, you know, say hi. And… I’m sorry for what happened to you and your family. That sucks. And I get it, you know. When my mom died, it was terrible. But it’s… I mean, I’m okay now. And I hope you’ll be okay, too. 

“I mean, if my dad and Scott died, too, I’d go nuts, you know? But I hope you’ll be okay. Even though your family’s dead and stuff. And I – oh, Mrs. McCall is looking for me. Gotta go. Anyway. Hi, Peter. Get well soon.”

+

“I’m not the monster here,” Peter says, and Stiles, at sixteen, is the kind of girl who snorts loudly. 

“Well, no. But you are the one threatening people I love, and that’s not cool, dude. Do your thing, set Kate Argent on fucking fire, I don’t care. Hell, if someone did to my dad or Scott what she did to your family, I’d be sharpening the kitchen knives, too.”

He wonders if she remembers being twelve and talking to a corpse in a hospital bed.

She licks her lips, nervous. Because of him, staring at her, red-eyed and full of death, or because of her own confession, her quiet admission of how alike they are. Or at least: how alike they could be. 

Circumstances make the man. The teenage girl, too. 

“So get your revenge. Whatever. But leave the people I love the fuck out of it, Peter, or I swear to god, I will set you on fire myself.”

She stands there, her gaudy green dress stained and torn, kitten heels long since kicked off, barefoot in torn stockings, tiny studs glittering in her ears, a stark contrast to her dark, shorn hair. The strapless cut Lydia chose for her does nothing but emphasize her broad shoulders and lack of a bust, making her look more awkward than even her jeans and oversized shirts can. But her eyes, so much brighter and colder than Claudia’s, shine with determination, her chin juts with rage and her arms, folded over her chest, don’t shake at all.

This town, full of small-minded idiots and bigots will ruin her like it ruined him, gentler, perhaps, than fire and poison, but it will. And like Peter is tethered here by his rage and his losses, she’s tied to this place by her loyalty to a thankless friend, a self-involved father and a stuck-up high school queen bee who thinks she’s too good for Stiles Stilinski.

Peter can’t help but find her beautiful, this slip of a girl.

“You know,” he drawls, slowly, like he has all the time in the world. “You’re the first one who gets it. The first one to understand… tell me, if I had been your family, would you have abandoned me, the way Laura and Derek did? And keep in mind, sweet girl, that I know when you lie.”

“No,” she says, her heart as steady as a drum. “And I won’t abandon Scott either.”

“Such loyalty,” he praises, taking a step closer to test her resolve, another. She stands her ground. “Would you like a reward? A gift? From me to you, Stiles. Do you want the bite?”

And again her answers is, “No.”

He hears the blip on it, the twist, the lie, smells her, sweat, desire, anger, loss, rage, rage, rage. 

“That was a lie,” he informs her, smirking around his teeth, reaching for her wrist without any real intent to force her anyway. She twists away, far too slow, but he finds himself letting her. Stiles stinks of many things, but he knows the combination of her, knows dangerous when he sees it, volatile and deadly. Knows better than to push her.

Lets it go. 

It and her, both, leaves his offer with her in that parking garage and goes to avenge himself on the world.

+

Seven years old:

“My mommy’s dying, isn’t she?”

And Peter, seeing no reason to lie, even to someone who can’t hear the deception instantly, crouches in front of the hard plastic chair she’s curled herself into, only a few feet from where Claudia lays dying, and answers, “Yes. I’m sorry.”

That’s the truth, too. 

+

Sixteen again, sixteen, it seems Stiles will be eternally sixteen to him. 

“You got your revenge,” she whispers, across the clearing, across a body, across Scott and his little Argent bitch, history repeating itself over and over again, nothing learned and nothing gained, across Derek, helpless and lost and so angry.

Peter can’t move, can barely blink, looks at the stars wheeling above and feels perversely proud of her, of what she did. 

That little bitch set him on fire, just like she said she would.

“You got yours,” she whispers, as Derek stands over him, gathers what little courage he has, claws extended – 

“And I got mine.”

\- swiping down. 

The pack is avenged, Peter is dead, and his only regret is not seeing the warrior Stiles will turn herself into, now that she has gotten a taste.

+

This is Stiles after death:

Bruised, outside and in, visible to all and sundry this time, a baseball bat clutched in her fingers, knuckles scraped raw, hoodie hanging off her collarbones, thinner than a few months ago, taller and paler and open like a wound.

Love-lost and hunter-beaten, friend-betrayed and grief-tainted.

Rage-marked. Blood-marked. 

Clever and ruthless and with her jaw set in a grim line as she watches an old man collapse under the strain of the poison in his system, crawling away to die like an animal. 

Satisfied. 

“What did he do to you, sweet girl?” he asks, after the Argents have left to lick their wounds, Scott trailing Allison like a puppy, after Lydia has bundled Jackson off in the jeep. Stiles waved them on, handed over her keys, didn’t seem to care at all. Just wanted them gone, young and beautiful and in love, while she stinks of pain and desperation. 

She blinks, too slow, half out of it. 

“I was supposed to be a message,” she whispers, gaze fixed on the spot where Scott made Derek bite the old man. Scott. Oh, that foolish boy.

While everyone else was watching the mainstage spectacle, Peter’s gaze was fixed on Stiles and the look of betrayal, of pain, flashing across her face was acridly bitter. Whatever the boy thinks he might have gained tonight, he’s lost something far more precious in exchange. 

Peter sighs. “I’ll take you home,” he offers and if anyone asks, it’s a service to a friend ten years dead and long forgotten.

“Peter,” Derek warns, low and angry and absolutely pointless.

“It’s okay,” Stiles declares, still staring at that damn spot. “Peter won’t hurt me.”

Then, in direct contradiction, she hefts her bat tighter and turns to him, waiting. Expectant. He takes off toward where he parked his car – a rental for now, being dead is such a _hassle_ \- and when he hears her limp painfully after him, he sighs and swoops down to pick her up, bridal style. 

For a second, just a second, the sweet scent of her, almonds and paper and old blood, is whited out by sheer terror. Peter makes a mental note to find Gerard’s body and mutilate it later.

+

Stiles at three am: curled under her Star Wars sheets, thawed peas dropped carelessly over the side of the bed, radiating bone-deep ache and a soul-deep fury.

Peter, sitting in her desk chair, hasn’t even pretended he’s going to leave, just sits there, watching. 

He was dead for two months. Sitting in a dark room and watching a teenage girl try to sleep seems exiting. Especially when she finally gives up the farce and turns to face him with a hiss and a palm pressed to her ribs. “Why?”

He could fake ignorance, but she wouldn’t believe it. “I told you, Stiles. I like you.”

“Not good enough.”

He shrugs. “Perhaps I am simply cautious enough to know making myself your enemy would be a bad idea.”

“You are my enemy,” she mutters, petulant. 

“In light of how your friends have been treating you, I don’t find that entirely objectionable.”

Silence. “Asshole.”

It takes her another hour to go to sleep. 

+

Stiles at seventeen, between the alpha pack and the darkness around her heart, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her nose, wearing board shorts and a tank top without a bra under it.

The pack has set up shop on the roof of Derek’s loft, robbing Peter of his favorite place to read. 

They brought food, drinks and loud conversation, determined to enjoy the early summer day. Stiles is right in the middle of it, laughing too loudly, until they start to settle down, like puppies after feeding time.

Then, quietly, she makes her way over to his perch and drops her towel at his feet, sprawling herself across it, eyes squinted closed behind those ridiculous glasses.

“Tell me something about my mom,” she orders into the ensuing silence and Peter’s nose itches with the acrid scent of surprise floating over from the rest of the band of misfits. 

With a thoughtful hum he offers, “You have her hair.”

She does, now that it’s growing out, a mess of loose curls around her ears, dark and thick and unruly. It’s in stubby pigtails today to keep it away from her neck and Lydia can’t help but cringe every time she sees them. 

Stiles cracks one eye open. “Thank you. Now maybe something I didn’t know yet?”

Sighing, Peter shakes his head. “We were high school friends, Stiles. She graduated, married your father and had you, while I finished school and went to college. We saw each other around town. I’m afraid I don’t have any deep, dark secrets to offer you.”

“You visited her at the hospital,” she argues, voice quiet for once. He didn’t think she remembered. 

“Once,” he corrects, half dreading where this is going. 

Stiles hesitant and careful is not a sight he particularly enjoys. “Would you… could you have asked Talia to turn her? Give her the bite?”

Damn her. “Sweet girl,” he starts, hears a hiss of protest from McCall, doesn’t so much as pause, “I know your mother meant the world to you, but to me, she was only an acquaintance. Another human dying before her time. I had no reason to interfere.”

He didn’t lie to her when she was seven and he sees no point in starting now. If anyone deserves his honesty, it’s her. 

Across the roof, both Derek and Scott have started up a low, continuous growl. No doubt ready and willing to hurt him for hurting their precious human. Stiles dislodges her sunglasses to scrub at her eyes, then nods once, decisively and rolls onto her stomach so she can bury her head in her arms. 

Peter goes back to his book.

+

Stiles at midnight, standing in his living room, her thumbs digging into the sleeves of her hoodie, her teeth sunk into her lips. 

There are bags under her eyes and new bruises for him to marvel at. 

Stiles at midnight is Cassandra of Troy, tired of her prophecies going unheard. The alpha, the kanima, Matt, the Argents. Herself and the void in her heart. She always warns and she is always right.

And always ignored. 

But unlike Cassandra, Stiles knows of her fate and she won’t let her city burn, won’t take her fate lying down. Stiles has no gods to pray to anymore, if she ever did. 

He can smell wolfsbane at her waistband, bullets, a gun, can see the bulge of a knife in her pocket and the fine grains of mountain ash clinging to her fingertips. 

“So,” she asks, chin rising defiantly, “are you coming?”

Of course he is.

+

Stiles after battle, still seventeen, Kate Agent’s body lying broken beside them, waiting for someone to set fire to it. This time, Peter will make damn sure she can’t come back. He knows, best of all, the slippery paths one may slither down to return from the next world to this one, and he doesn’t fancy killing her a third time. 

Stiles nudges the dead woman’s hip with the toe of her sneakers, grimaces, calm for once, and settled into her own skin. Peter always thought murder would have that effect on her. 

“Sweet girl,” he tells her, his voice a raspy murmur around fangs that won’t quite recede, “that was truly masterful.”

She grimaces at him. “Don’t compliment my murder technique, you creep.”

He bows his head, faux acquiescent. “But no-one else will.”

With a sigh, she rubs her face, smearing drops of blood along her cheekbones and Peter gives up, gives in, just stops caring, hauls her in by her hood and kisses her. 

+

This is Stiles shortly before college, her legs thrown across Peter’s lap on the couch, a fan of college brochures in hand, battered and annotated.

She flaps them all against his chest, says, “Stanford has decided it wants to be graced with my illustrious presence.”

She makes it sound like a joke, cock-sure and dismissive, as always, but Peter hears the joy, the elation, the sheer disbelief in it. He hears the fear.

One hand picking the brochures off his chest, he uses the other to wrap around her ankle – the one she twisted last week while hunting redcaps through the woods – and squeeze. 

“When are we moving?” he asks and she smiles, painfully wide and open and young. Sometimes, Stiles is so terribly young. 

“We? Presumptuous, aren’t we?” she kids, hitching herself closer to him. She’s become entirely shameless since she came of age, flaunting this at every turn: touching him, kissing him, owning him. She nuzzles into his neck and then falls silent. 

“Peter?”

“Yes, sweet girl.”

“This has nothing to do with my mom, does it?” she demands, quietly, after a long hesitation. 

And Peter thinks of Claudia, pretty, funny Claudia, with dementia eating her brain and a child as bright as a star clinging to her all the while. This is what she is to him now: Stiles’ mother. He is grateful to her, for giving him this girl, for making her lonely and fierce and terrible with her absence, even as he knows Claudia would absolutely hate him for it.

“No,” he answers, and it’s not a lie. 

+

This is Stiles at eighteen, twenty, twenty-five: Tall, skinny, pale, mole-dotted and tenderly bruised on the inside. Big-mouthed and pixie-nosed, with her hair growing longer by the year and her mother fading, fading, fading from her memory.

War-worn and battle-torn, blood-baptized and violence-made. Vicious and proud and clever, disease-orphaned, alcohol-orphaned, absence-orphaned, and stronger for it, stronger, stronger. 

She walks with her shoulders straight now, her head held high, walks in steel-toed boots and sloppy jeans, with a t-shirt Peter bought her just to see her smile.

She reminds him that she can and will set him on fire on a weekly basis and he believes it every time and doesn’t bother to explain that he has no need for red eyes anymore. Not while he has this. Not while he has all the power she brings, the violence and the chaos. Not while he has her.

And Stiles, at any age, is definitely that: his. 

+

(This is Peter, too, at any age, from thirty-six to his second grave: hers.

“And don’t you forget it,” she jeers, biting a kiss at his mouth, fingers knotted in his hair, too tight.

Peter laughs against her neck and nips on tender skin, a happier monster than he deserves to be.

“Of course,” he promises and means it.)

+


End file.
